Welcoming
Remarks:

Malcolm X Commemoration Committee
Annual Dinner Tribute to the Families
of Our Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War

by Dequi Kioni-Sadeki

Saturday,
January 17th,
2015--Welcome to this 19th
year of
fundraising and paying tribute to the Families of our political
prisoners and
prisoners of war. On behalf of Herman and Iyaluua Ferguson especially,
our
founding members and our current members, we thank you for being here
and for
standing in the tradition of Black love, Black resistance, Black family
and
Black community. Some of y’all have attended this dinner
from its
inception; some have come and gone and come back; some are here for the
first
time. Whatever your category, we hope it won't be your last time and
that we
can count on your continued support until we have no more freedom
fighters held
captive behind the walls. We also thank Michael Garvey, the 1199 SEIU
activists, and the MLK, Jr. Labor Center’s staff here today for
helping to make
this day what it is.

This
dinner is a labor of our love in defense of Black
resistance, in defense of Sundiata Acoli, Abdul Majid, Mutulu Shakur,
Robert
Seth Hayes, Jalil Muntaqim, Kamau Sadiki, Mumia, and that other Herman,
Herman
Bell as he calls himself, for their decades-long sacrifices to the
Black
freedom struggle. This dinner is our acknowledgement to Mrs.
LaBorde and
her grandson Suliaman, Mrs. York and Paula York-Jones, Sheila Hays,
Theresa and
Sharon and Russell Shoatz, Sunni Middleton, Kissay and Pam Sadiki,
Kamel Bell,
Anochi and Muhammad Odinga and all the children, grandchildren and
great-grandchildren of our political prisoners, so that we don’t
forget
how—some 40-plus years after people stopped talking about
Cointelpro's war on
Black Liberation and on the Black Panther Party—y’all have
been living its
consequences and its legacy every day.

This
dinner is also about us acknowledging David
Gilbert, Tom Manning, Bill Dunne and all those folk who made the
conscious
choice to align themselves, their families, their lives and freedom
with the
Black Liberation Movement, as well as remembering the lives and
legacies of Dr.
Alan Berkman (about whom I’ve heard on more than one occasion
that if folk
could just get to him, they would be okay), Marilyn Buck, Albert Nuh
Washington, Kuwasi Balagoon, Bashir Hammed, Teddy Jah Heath, Merle and
most
recently, Phil Africa who have joined the ancestors, what their lives
meant to
the Black freedom struggle. While we cannot claim to know anywhere near
the
generations-deep battle scars experienced by the families of our
political
prisoners and prisoners of war, we share in the collective loss to our
community, the attacks on our humanity, and the crushing blows to our
fight for
justice, for self-determination and liberation, under
Cointelpro’s war on Black
liberation.

This
event happens but once a year. So we encourage
each of you to support (if you don’t already) our political
prisoners and their
families in other ways the rest of the year. You can find a list of
“10 Things
You Can Do” in your Program (also see below). Just know that
visiting, sending
commissary money, and donating funds for legal challenges are [. . .]
always
needed. Visiting is important because it lets the facility know
that our
political prisoners and prisoners of war remain connected to the
outside
world. Your support of this dinner, and your additional
contributions for
the rest of the year, make the difference between a prisoner being able
to buy
everything—from toothpaste to soap, toilet paper, food, clothing,
sheets,
footwear, stamps, paper, pens—and, in some cases, whether they
are able to send
money home. Someone told me recently that a toiletry costing $1.74 in
1974 now
costs $3.21. So if we, on the outside, have a hard time making
ends meet
on our so-called “living wage” salaries, imagine buying the
same products at
the same or inflated prison-vendor prices when all you earn is the
prison labor
“salary” of $.75 to $1.50 a day.

If
you consider visiting, always check with the
facility first, as different regulations exist with regard to federal
versus
state, state to state, as well as prison to prison within a particular
state.

These
activities—visiting, commissary, etc.—all point
to a repeated refrain expressed by Abdul Majid, that “freedom
ain’t free and it
don’t come cheap.” I would add that captivity ain’t
cheap either.
Thankfully, with this dinner we are able to demonstrate to our
political
prisoners/prisoners of war and their families that they do not carry
the
economic hardship that political imprisonment has placed on their lives
all by
themselves. (We ask that if at any time you plan to send Majid
commissary funds
that you contact us first so we can let you know the best way to
support him
monetarily—since the State keeps any monies sent to him through
ordinary
channels thanks to a lawsuit filed and won against him.)

And
so this dinner is important, because it’s a time
when we come together to honor a particular aspect of the
history/herstory of
the Black Liberation Movement that is mostly
dismissed/ignored/marginalized
when people talk about the Black freedom struggle. It's a time when we
come
together and reflect on where we were, where we are, and where we are
going in
our work to free our political prisoners/prisoners of war in the here
and
now—and beyond. It's a time when we can speak the names of our
political
prisoners and their family members. in a space and time that recognizes
our
right to dare to struggle for liberation by any means necessary. It's a
time—on
this particular occasion—when we come together to reflect upon
our hard won
2014 victories, like the pending release of Sundiata Acoli, the release
of
Lynne Stewart, Marshall Eddie Conway, Sekou Kambui, the Cuban 5,
Norberto
Gonzalez and [. . .] Sekou Odinga; just as it’s a time when we
consider the
losses we suffered with the state-sanctioned murders of Phil Africa and
Herman
Wallace, the pernicious and repeated parole denials of Herman Bell,
Jalil, Seth
and Mutulu, and the transfer of eighty-eight year-old Momman Koti into
federal
custody.

Oppression
breeds resistance and so they can't keep us
down. We will follow MOVE's lead and stay “onamove”
as we "pick up
the work" to end the unjust political imprisonment of the remaining
sixteen members of the Black Panther Party and all of our political
prisoners.

In
closing, we called this 2015 dinner “In the
Tradition” because it is about our being and staying in a
tradition of Black
Love, Black resistance, Black family and Black community. Almost
two
decades ago, Iyaluua created an event that was steeped in the tradition
of
Black love and Black resistance. Your participation has kept it going
in the
tradition of Black love, Black resistance and in the tradition of Black
family
and Black community. We are, with this dinner, continuing to pursue a
living
example—of resistance as our motto, of culture as our weapon, of
education for
our liberation, of self-defense and self-determination as our divine
right. With that said, please join me in raising a strong Black
fist for
three generations of radical Black womyn, Iyaluua Ferguson, Amina
Baraka and
Liza Jessie Peterson and for each and every one of you here
today. Thank
you for making this Saturday, January 17th 2015, about those captured
freedom
fighters who couldn't be with us here today, and about the former ones
who
are!!!!!

As
Salaam Alaikum!

Free
the Land!

Free
all u.s.
held political prisoners and prisoners of war!

Long
live Baba Herman Ferguson!

Peace!

10 Things YOU Can Do for the Freedom of Political
Prisoners

The
Freedom of all PPs requires
the building of a mass
united Movement. To that end here are ten things you can do to
contribute to
the building of such a Movement:

1. Write to, and if you can, send money to the Political Prisoners. Let
them
know that you support and care about them. The address of all the
Political Prisoners
can be found at thejerichomovement.com;

3. Challenge the myth that Political Prisoners do not exist in the
united
states—educate your family, friends, co-workers, members of your
faith-based
community, if you belong to one, about the existence of the Political
Prisoners
and campaigns for their Freedom;

6. Send emails, Twitter messages to your friends/followers
calling for
the Freedom of Political Prisoners;

7. Even if you didn’t vote for them or don’t vote, let your
elected
representatives know that the Freedom of Political Prisoners is one of
the
issues that you are concerned about. The addresses of all elected
officials
from the President to the City Council are readily available on the
internet;

8. Put up a poster/picture in your home/windows of Political Prisoners;